Karma reasons for concrete message

Message

Mooby,once you have assessed the risk,YOU have the right NOT to take the vaccine. These people do not,they take it or get fired. Hardly OK in a "free" country

I am not speaking out against vaccines here,but about an individuals right to decide for themselves.

Yes, you have the right not to take the vaccine. You also have the right to free speech, and freedom of the press. If you choose to exercise these rights within the confines of the law, the government can't punish you for it. If, however, you decide to curse your boss out and circulate a flyer about why the company sucks, the company can and will fire you. This is because a private corporation is not the government. Your rights are irrelevant to a private company unless the government enacts specific regulations that require a company to abide by them (such as anti-discrimination laws.)

Hospitals have the right to enforce measures to maintain the hospital at an appropriate level of sanitation for treating patients. If they feel that people walking around for entire shifts shedding a potentially lethal virus (yes, the flu is a potentially lethal virus), they should have the right to take measures to reduce that risk, and require staff to comply. Yes, firing may seem a bit extreme, but that's where the new standards are headed. My own hospital isn't 100% there yet: it's technically compulsory, but we can sign a waiver without penalty so in practice it's not compulsory. But I wouldn't be surprised if in a few years they required a documented medical reason to waive.

The same thing's happening with smoking. It used to be no smoking in the hospital, then no smoking anywhere on the hospital premises (even inside your car in the parking lot.) Now many hospitals are straight up asking if you smoke during your interview, and some are even checking nicotine levels on potential employees. If you smoke, you're out. Is that legal? Yeah, as long as the government doesn't pass a law preventing discrimination against smokers.

My point is that every company has its own policies. Unless the government says those policies are illegal, they can force you to follow them under threat of termination. If you don't like it, it's your right to refuse employment there.

GB and the flu shot is only 90% effective if it is a similar strain,,,useless if its not so what about the 10% of employees who carry the flu virus because the vaccine fails?

Flu virus is seasonal, like weather patterns. A 90% chance of rain tomorrow does not mean that 1 out of every 10 houses in your neighborhood will have a dry roof at the end of the day. It means that there's a 90% chance that the front carrying rain will move through your area. Likewise, 90% effectiveness on the flu means there is a 90% chance that the vaccine will cover the strains in your area during the flu season. To compare, seat belts reduce your risk of injury or death in a car accident by about 50%.

Your earlier post made me think of a patient we had in the ER once. She was drunk, high, belligerent, demanding... I'm sure you know the type. Anyways, a nurse was trying to draw blood from her, she jerked her arm and the needle came out, and he was like, "Whoa!" Another nurse immediately asked, "Did you get stuck?" And the patient replied, "HIM? You're asking if HE got stuck? WHAT ABOUT ME?"

See, your first response to the hospital story was to point out how you'd be ok if you got sick. But really, why would the hospital make a policy like that for you? Unless they're expecting huge financial losses if you are out of work, it's probably much less about whether you'll get sick and more about whether you'll make everyone else sick.

Quote

Anyway, Gereral Precuations will prevent transmission pretty well.

Standard Precautions are great, but they're not everything. The flu can be transmitted directly, airborne, and contact, and it can take as little as one droplet to become infected. So even if you're following Standard Precautions 100% of the time, you still have to prevent 100% of the virus spread, and that's just not possible. The best precaution is to not be shedding the virus in the first place, which Standard Precautions will not do.

Just look at how fast a viral gastroenteritis can spread. I've seen them fly around hospitals, even when staff is taking proper precautions. I managed to catch it from an infant, even though I washed my hands right after examining him. If there's an outbreak of a flu at a hospital, it's probably already too late to do anything.

Quote

Work should be organised in such a way that as few staff as possible are in contact with highly infectious patients.

That's great for something like TB. But in a flu outbreak, you can catch it at the mall and bring it into work.